Birds of Prey
SciShow Tangents
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The Death of Bald Eagles
In the mid nineties, bald eagles were found dead in six different states. Autopsies revealed that only physical signs of the disease were gross on the brain and spinal cord. Eventually they identified one pattern - an invasive aquatic plant species called hydrilla verdicilate which is a popular type of aquarium plant. However, the plants themselves weren't harmful to eagles. In these bodies of water lurked a silent killer, a type of siano bacteria that loved to grow on the hydrilla plant. But this sciana bacteria had a very good alibi. No matter how much of it they fed to chickens in lab conditions, they couldn't get the damned chickens
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